On last night’s episode of “The Good Wife“–spoiler alert!–Gardner, the character played by actor Josh Charles, was killed in a courtroom shooting. The fatality took many “Good Wife” fans by surprise, in part because there was very little buildup. The death happened suddenly, just like tragedies sometimes happen in real life. And real life–and real death–used to be the last thing people expected from TV dramas.

In recent weeks and months, killing major characters has become a thing on television. Of course, back in the day, TV had its share of deaths. In 1975 on “M*A*S*H,” the Henry Blake character, beloved by nearly everyone, was shot down over the Sea of Japan. In 1980 on the “All in the Family” spinoff “Archie Bunker’s Place,” the Edith Bunker character, beloved by nearly everyone, died of a stroke. Read More »

Older Americans have long been uncomfortable talking about class, but today, young Americans are wildly interested in reading about it.

Many of the most popular young adult novels right now–including “Divergent,” “The Hunger Games,” and “Red Rising“–portray futuristic dystopias in which society has been divided by totalitarian rulers into sharply defined castes, factions and districts. Near the beginning of the film adaptation of “Divergent,” which opened last night, one character offers a kind of social status manifesto: “The future belongs to those who know where they belong.”

According to Rentrak, “Divergent” pulled in an estimated $4.9 million during special Thursday night showings yesterday.

Science fiction writers–including such authors as Ursula K. Le Guin and China Miéville–have long used stories set in the future to explore ideas about social status. Read More »

Young adult books such as “Divergent” and “The Hunger Games” feature strong female heroes, and have attracted legions of readers of both genders. The success of such books, which don’t cater to a specific gender, is giving new life to a long-running debate over whether kids books should be segregated by gender at all.

Katy Guest, the literary editor of the Independent on Sunday, a British newspaper, recently announced in an essay that “splitting children’s books strictly along gender lines” was a bad thing for girls, boys and publishing. She cited an online campaign called Let Books Be Books (an offshoot of Let Toys Be Toys), which has been working to encourage publishers to get rid of gender-specific books, and declared that she was now making her own move. Read More »

What do the novels “Divergent” by Veronica Roth, “Legend” by Marie Lu, “The Unwanteds” by Lisa McMann, “Red Rising” by Pierce Brown, and “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins all have in common?

A) All five books are bestsellers.

B) All five books are examples of young adult dystopian fiction.

C) All five books revolve around tests or contests that determine the future of young adult characters.

D) All of the above.

The answer is D). Earlier this month, the College Board announced sweeping changes to the SAT college entrance exam, including making the essay section optional and doing away with some vocabulary words. Over the last few years, however, young adult novelists have been doing their own reimagining of standardized tests, portraying them as life and death trials that divide friends and neighbors, and that form the basis for tyrannical, inegalitarian societies. Read More »

Tonight, “Girls” creator and star Lena Dunham hosts “Saturday Night Live” with musical guest the National, but she’s got other comic doings in the works. This week she announced that she’s set to write a story for Archie comics for a planned 2015 release. Dunham has had a critically-acclaimed but controversial run on TV, with observers critiquing her humor, her casting and even her clothing (or lack of it). Can she pull off her latest bid at multitasking? All of which leads to our latest “SFW” cartoon, which this week takes the form of a parody. Follow me @cjfarley on Twitter and check out my new book “Game World.”Read More »

Last weekend, Theodor Geisel aka Dr. Seuss, would have celebrated his 110th birthday except for the fact that 1)He died in 1991 at the age of 87 and 2) Most everyone in the media on Sunday was focused on the Oscars, the Ukraine crisis, or in the case of Jared Leto, both.

Happily, celebrations to mark the Seussian landmark will be happening all year all over the place. As a children’s author myself– my middle-grade fantasy novel “Game World” was recently released and the audio book came out last month–I thought I’d also pay tribute to an author who was an influence on pretty much anyone who every wrote a kids book or had a kid.Read More »

Getting upset at the decision making at an awards show, as rapper Kanye West famously found out when he interrupted Taylor Swift onstage as she was picking up a trophy from MTV, usually makes the complainer seem more pitiful than the program.

That said, the nominees for best picture for this year’s Academy Awards might make some movie lovers want to jump on stage and grab someone’s microphone.

On the surface, Oscars voters seem to have selected an eclectic group of movies. The nine films nominated for best picture are “12 Years a Slave,” “American Hustle,” “Gravity,” “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Her,” “Nebraska,” “Philomena,” “Captain Phillips,” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.” These are all quality films, especially favored “12 Years a Slave,” which faces up to the weighty subject of American slavery, and “Dallas Buyers Club,” which explores the early days of the AIDS crisis.

But the outrage isn’t about what’s is on the list, it’s about what was snubbed. Read More »

Comedy used to be about being a character. Now it’s about 140 of them.

This week, Jimmy Fallon debuted as the host of “The Tonight Show.” According to preliminary ratings released by NBC, Fallon attracted 11.3 million viewers, the second-biggest audience for the show since 2009. The network says the Olympic-supported ratings for the show were also strong on Tuesday and Wednesday.

But what’s arguably more impressive is that a 2-minute and 55-second comedy segment spun off on YouTube from the show, “Evolution of Hip-Hop Dancing” featuring Fallon and Will Smith, so far has racked up almost 7 million views–and counting.

As the Fallon era begins, comedy is going through a digital shift. Only a few years ago, the first satiric barbs about any breaking news story were launched by the late-night comics. Back in his day, Johnny Carson was both the first word and the last word when it came to making fun of the headlines.

Now, humorous feedback is almost instantaneous as millions of professional and amateur wags have their say about trending topics on Twitter, Facebook, Vine and elsewhere on social media, hours before the late-night shows bat clean up. Read More »

“Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”—T.S. Eliot, “The Rock” (1934)

Back when I was in college, I was elected librarian of the Harvard Lampoon in a contest that seemed unusually tight despite the fact that I think my run was uncontested. The undergraduate humor magazine is housed in a mock Flemish castle that dates back to 1909, and I was supposed to find funny books to stock the Lampy library, a quirky, circular chamber with a secret sliding bookshelf that opened up to a hidden room.

Libraries, for me, have always been portals to unexpected places, but in the coming years some of them could become casualties of the internet age. Much of this will be a topic of discussion at The Public Library Association’s (PLA) biennial Conference, set to be held next month in Indianapolis. Public school libraries are enduring budget cuts and staffing reductions. According to a Pew survey released in 2013, 54% of Americans ages 16 and older had personally used a library or library website in the past 12 months, down from 59 % the previous year. The American Library Association (ALA) reports that the use of library materials has increased in recent years, but recent numbers indicate that physical visits have dipped slightly.

To thrive in the digital present and future, today’s librarians should take inspiration from the ancients–and heed their mistakes.

Egypt’s Great Library of Alexandria was founded somewhere around 300 B.C. and endured until possibly 270 A.D. and, according to “Libraries in the Ancient World” by Lionel Casson, its leaders did more than just stock rolls of papyrus. The library thrived in part because of constant innovation. Read More »

In the age of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr, how do you get kids to read an actual book?

In his first novel for young readers, “Game World,” author and Speakeasy editor Christopher John Farley takes on the challenge. Farley, who has two young children, sees the effects of the Internet, movies and video games on kids, and the diminishing appeal of books in a world of instant entertainment. He wanted to write a fantasy book that attracts kids and activates their imagination.

“There’s something important about building these images in your own head. Not just getting it from movies, not just getting it from a joystick or a controller, but really getting it from reading the book,” he said.Read More »

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.